Jumbo Jet

A converted Boeing 747 that resembles the aircraft often used as Air Force One frequently attracts attention when it parks at Patrick Air Force Base, but officials warned motorists Wednesday not to stop and take photos, the newspaper Florida Today reports. The Boeing E-4B National Airborne Operations Center is fully equipped to respond to disasters or military situations nationwide and is visible from State Road A1A, where it should remain for a few days, but it doesn't bear the presidential seal.

Teachers today have it harder than ever. That's a fact, regardless of whether you agree with education reforms. I happen to like many elements of reform, including the attention paid to student performance. But that doesn't mean teachers aren't facing new and more intense pressures. The biggest? Teacher paychecks linked to student test scores. This has resulted in unintended consequences, including this one: Some veteran teachers are less willing today to mentor student interns because turning over control of their classrooms, even temporarily, means risking lower scores if the intern bombs.

SYDNEY, Australia - An Air New Zealand jumbo jet nearly landed on top of a small plane waiting to take off from Sydney Airport because the air traffic controllers' radio frequency jammed. The Boeing 747-400, carrying 220 passengers from Auckland, headed straight for the 36-seat Dash 8. It only pulled up at the last minute, when the pilot followed emergency procedures after failing to receive clearance to land, Air New Zealand officials said Wednesday.

A converted Boeing 747 that resembles the aircraft often used as Air Force One frequently attracts attention when it parks at Patrick Air Force Base, but officials warned motorists Wednesday not to stop and take photos, the newspaper Florida Today reports. The Boeing E-4B National Airborne Operations Center is fully equipped to respond to disasters or military situations nationwide and is visible from State Road A1A, where it should remain for a few days, but it doesn't bear the presidential seal.

AGANA, Guam - A jumbo jet's engine exploded shortly after the plane took off Saturday for Honolulu, forcing the pilot to dump fuel and return to the airport. None of the 423 passengers aboard Continental Micronesia Flight 002 was injured. The cause of the explosion was being investigated, said Wally Dias, the airline's vice president of marketing. The passengers were put on another plane that left for Honolulu about four hours later.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A jumbo jet carrying the space shuttle Atlantis took off Sunday on a return trip to the shuttle's launch site at Kennedy Space Center. A modified Boeing 747 with the shuttle mounted on its back left from the Mojave Desert air base at 6:05 a.m. PDT, said Alan Brown, a spokesman at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It landed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., Sunday afternoon, said NASA spokeswoman Jennifer Tharpe. NASA officials were monitoring the weather in Nebraska and in Florida and did not expect to take off until this morning, Tharpe said.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. may build a new jumbo jet to compete with Boeing Co.'s well-known 747, a sign that McDonnell's passenger plane business is pulling out of a half-decade of turbulence.McDonnell's Long Beach plant is speeding up internal studies examining a variety of planes, including a 400-seat aircraft, company spokesman Don Hanson said. Slow sales forced the company to abort a project for a 550-seat plane in 1992.''The object is to get those studies concluded so we can reach a decision sometime in the third quarter of this year,'' Hanson said.

After 26 years in service, the Boeing 747, the original jumbo jet, is getting a new lease on life with not one, but two new versions in the works.The first of the planned versions, the 747-500, would keep the 450 passenger seats of the current model, the 747-400, and add about 1,000 miles to its 8,200-mile range.The second new version, the 747-600, would increase capacity to about 560 passengers by ''stretching'' the plane 20 feet.Once the new versions are flying, by about the turn of the century, Boeing would pull the plug on the 747-400, company President Phil Condit said last week.

MIAMI -- Drenched in jet fuel and smothered by debris, 23-year-old flight attendant Beverly Raposa struggled to free herself from a jump seat and blinked her eyes to adjust to the blackness surrounding her. She had survived a jumbo jet's violent crash into the Florida Everglades. It was one of Florida's worst airline crashes and it happened just before midnight on Friday, Dec. 29, 1972 -- 35 years ago today. Crawling through the darkness and muck, Raposa found fellow flight attendant Mercy Ruiz, 29, who had been hurled from the plane.

MIAMI -- Drenched in jet fuel and smothered by debris, 23-year-old flight attendant Beverly Raposa struggled to free herself from a jump seat and blinked her eyes to adjust to the blackness surrounding her. She had survived a jumbo jet's violent crash into the Florida Everglades. It was one of Florida's worst airline crashes and it happened just before midnight on Friday, Dec. 29, 1972 -- 35 years ago today. Crawling through the darkness and muck, Raposa found fellow flight attendant Mercy Ruiz, 29, who had been hurled from the plane.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A jumbo jet carrying the space shuttle Atlantis took off Sunday on a return trip to the shuttle's launch site at Kennedy Space Center. A modified Boeing 747 with the shuttle mounted on its back left from the Mojave Desert air base at 6:05 a.m. PDT, said Alan Brown, a spokesman at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It landed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., Sunday afternoon, said NASA spokeswoman Jennifer Tharpe. NASA officials were monitoring the weather in Nebraska and in Florida and did not expect to take off until this morning, Tharpe said.

The pages of history are filled with the names of intrepid travelers: Christopher Columbus. Lewis and Clark. Ferdinand Magellan. Babar the Elephant. Babar? But of course. In his latest book, Babar's World Tour (Harry N. Abrams; $16.95), the benevolent behemoth and his pachyderm posse travel to such faraway places as Thailand, Egypt, Germany, Cambodia and Antarctica. "It was about representing almost every kind of city or place in the world," says Laurent de Brunhoff, Babar's designated chronicler since taking over for his father six decades ago. De Brunhoff, who now divides his time between Key West and New York, turned 80 last month.

The Boeing Co. will begin taking orders for its first new jet design in 13 years, the 7E7 Dreamliner, as it works to regain aircraft leadership from European rival Airbus by pinning its future on a lighter, roomier, more fuel-efficient plane Named the Dreamliner in a contest, Boeing's 7E7 will offer passengers oversized windows and lavatories and likely lead to many more direct international flights. But, most important to potential sales, it will offer the financially battered airlines a fuel-efficient ride, using 20 percent less fuel than other wide-body planes, the company said.

CHICAGO -- Air traffic controllers at O'Hare International Airport raised safety concerns after five runway mishaps, including one in which a jumbo jet going 100 mph burned out its brakes trying to avoid a small plane. The controllers attribute the problems, which all occurred since April 1, to the relocation of a small-plane service center and the closure of an airport catering to small planes. Small planes now must cross two runways to get to their take-off destination from the service center.

If a Boeing 747 with more than 300 passengers plunged into the desert between Los Angeles and Phoenix, it would be big news. And if, a year later, a jumbo jet filled to capacity crashed en route from El Paso to Dallas, that would get our attention, too. Imagine the reaction if the two tragedies were linked: that a technical problem in the air-traffic-control system was to blame or that terrorists had brought down both aircraft. Is there any doubt the federal government would move fast to prevent another catastrophe?

Delta Air Lines has filed a $34 million claim against the federal government in an attempt to recover costs from the crash of Flight 191 at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport last Aug. 2. The disaster killed 137 people.The one-page claim is the first step the airline must take before filing suit against the government. It was filed against the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service in Washington last week, said an insurance representative for the airline.

LONDON - Two British balloonists trying to circle the world nonstop had their own cheering squad Friday as they floated by hundreds of passengers on a jumbo jet over the South China Sea. The British Cable and Wireless balloon, which took off from Spain on Feb. 17, was flying at 25,000 feet on Friday when the captain of a passing Boeing 747 radioed a request to approach the balloon so the passengers could take pictures, the duo's London spokesmen said....

Food zealots flying to New Orleans for Louisiana oysters -- fried, piled on platters, tucked in po' boys or simmered in soup, as prepared at the famed Acme Oyster Howse in the French Quarter -- can now indulge soon after unbuckling their seat belts. A recently opened branch of the Acme at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport's new Jazz Alley Food Court serves a variety of regional fare, including gumbo and shrimp creole for $6.99 each, as well as other dishes priced up to $22.99.

A new generation of jumbo jets is taking off in five years, and Orlando International Airport will be ready to accommodate the cruise ships of the sky. With space to spread out and extra wide runways, Orlando will have fewer problems than a lot of major airports in making room for the Airbus Industrie planes, said Donald Guffey, program manager for the Federal Aviation Administration's office of system capacity. Newer airports such as those in Denver and Dallas already can handle the Airbus A380, Guffey said, while older airports in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco will have to make adjustments, primarily to gates and taxiways.